The Ad is the Content
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By suggesting that “the ad is the content” during a private conversation at AdTech, Darius Abbassi (Director of eCommerce for MotoSport) perfectly summarized what many video commerce professionals are starting to learn from their campaigns and web analytics reports. Darius articulated this concept for me as general marketing strategy, essentially arguing that shoppers are becoming immune to traditional marketing tactics and make purchasing on content sites.
Naturally, we should ask ourselves the same question about video commerce. What types of content work, and doesn’t work. Is a video commerce clip an ad? Or a piece of content? |
Let’s think about TV commercials for a moment. Who doesn’t get irritated by the shear amount of advertising that’s invaded our television channels? TV commercials are invasive and most of the times, irrelevant. The Web is supposed to solve this problem, by allowing the user to ignore ads easily, scroll down or simply click away. And because of its measurability, online advertising actually doesn’t leave much room for poor quality advertising. This is why you rarely see TV commercials running on sites as standalone banners. They just don’t work. True, pre-roll and post-roll still allow these type of commercials to exist online, but let’s be honest - who wants to watch a commercial? Whether it’s pre-roll or post-roll, TV ads are an annoyance online.
Online Merchandisers sometimes misinterpret the value of video for e-commerce, thinking that product pages are going to be invaded with TV commercials and high level marketing messages. We can’t blame them – many brands and suppliers are pushing them to reuse the video clips they’ve produced for the television. Clearly, the right approach for persuading prospects to buy products is to use short, well-scripted product videos that add value to the purchasing decision process. They have to show products in a way that’s simply impossible to put into words or photos. They have to be directly relevant to the product that’s been viewed, and yes, they need to be short and to the point to convince a hesitant prospect to make a purchase.
When videos are created with the simple and noble goal to honestly explain, demonstrate or showcase a product, not only can they be used as a conversion machine on product pages, but also as a powerful lead generation tool outside of an e-commerce site. The content is the ad, the ad the content.
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May 2nd, 2009 at 9:55 am
I think the video commerce industry still has a long way to go toward understanding what type of content works best, where. On product pages, I think you’re clearly correct. Educational, useful videos that tip the sale are the right approach - but even there, at least today - it still seems like there’s a lot of guesswork going on and I agree with your comment about manufacturer video and TV ads and we’re starting to see some startups that can offer retailers with more control over the messaging while containing production costs.
I’m intensely interested in learning how the ‘context’ of a video impacts its performance, and verifying that educational or how-to content do really work better off-site. My suspicion would be that the broader the reach of a distribution channel, and the less targeted the audience, the more promotional vs. educational the video must be to perform well. Where it gets really fascinating is when you start considering all the possible distribution points for product video - affiliates, email, social networks, mobile devices. I’d love to understand the ‘correct’ promotional/educational weighting for different types of products/product categories based on the distribution channel and reach/relevance blend for that channel to the audience.
- Justin
May 5th, 2009 at 3:51 am
The content is the ad is very much our mantra at vzaar so thought you might be interested in what our CTO Adrian has posted in response to this piece on our vzaar business blog
http://vzaar.com/blog/2009/05/the-ad-is-the-content